But that only a year ago a host of smart people would have been only too pleased to take a hand at cards with him.

Yes--he went on--some of the very people who were there accommodated with seats on the bench; and turning upon the counsel "You yourself as well," he cried.

He could have had half the town at his rooms to fawn upon him if he had cared for that sort of thing.

"Why, now I think of it, it took me most of my time to keep people, just of your sort, off me," he ended with a good humoured--quite unobtrusive, contempt, as though the fact had dawned upon him for the first time.
This was the moment, the only moment, when he had perhaps all the audience in Court with him, in a hush of dreary silence.

And then the dreary proceedings were resumed.